uk.ac.ebi.microarray.zooma.track
Interface HypothesisTracker

All Superinterfaces:

InformationTracker

All Known Implementing Classes:

HypothesisRankingTracker

public interface HypothesisTracker
extends InformationTracker

An interface for tracking OntologyMappingHypothesis objects specifically. Hypotheses can be added to the tracker manually.

Trackers obviously have a complex internal state. Whilst implementations should always be thread-safe, trackers that are used across formulator and evaluator subsystems may behave unpredictably if more hypotheses are registered after assessment has begun. Generally it is advisable to use one tracker per formulate/evaluate request pair. However, once evaluation has completed it is possible to clear the state of the tracker using the clearHypotheses() method. Trackers can then safely be reused.

Author:

Tony Burdett

Method Summary

void	clearHypotheses() Clears the current set of tracked hypotheses.
java.util.Collection<OntologyMappingHypothesis>	getBestHypotheses() Returns the collection of OntologyMappingHypothesis objects that are known to be the best possible hypotheses given the current state of assessment.
java.util.Collection<OntologyMappingHypothesis>	getCandidateAlternativeHypotheses() Returns the collection of possible alternatives to the current null hypothesis.
OntologyMappingHypothesis	getCurrentNullHypothesis() Returns the OntologyMappingHypothesis that is designated as the current null (or current accepted) hypothesis.

Methods inherited from interface uk.ac.ebi.microarray.zooma.track.InformationTracker

informationChanged

Method Detail

getCurrentNullHypothesis

OntologyMappingHypothesis getCurrentNullHypothesis()

Returns the OntologyMappingHypothesis that is designated as the current null (or current accepted) hypothesis. This will change whenever a hypothesis different to this one is accepted.

Returns:

the hypothesis that is the current null

getCandidateAlternativeHypotheses

java.util.Collection<OntologyMappingHypothesis> getCandidateAlternativeHypotheses()

Returns the collection of possible alternatives to the current null hypothesis. Any hypotheses that have been rejected against any of the current or previous null hypotheses will not show up here. In this way, you can progressively whittle down the set of possible alternatives to derive the best possible mapping.

Returns:

a collection of possible alternative hypotheses

getBestHypotheses

java.util.Collection<OntologyMappingHypothesis> getBestHypotheses()

Returns the collection of OntologyMappingHypothesis objects that are known to be the best possible hypotheses given the current state of assessment. Before any hypothesis testing has been carried out, this will be all known hypotheses: there isn't enough information to throw any away. Assuming every hypothesis has been tested at least once, this will return the set of the current null hypothesis, plus any hypotheses that have not been rejected against the current null.

Returns:

the set of possible hypotheses that are as good as the current null hypothesis (including the hypothesis that is the current null)

clearHypotheses

void clearHypotheses()

Clears the current set of tracked hypotheses. This clears the set of hypotheses that are being tracked by this tracker. Hypotheses may maintain a soft reference to this tracker, however.